“Where is your cloak?” he asked, rising to receive her.

“I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly.”

“You will not take cold?”

“I?  I am on fire myself.”

“Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you.”

“It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?—­drifting on before the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging turbulence.  Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,—­and then imagine the devouring monster below in his den!”

“Don’t imagine it.  Be quiet and sit beside me.  Half the night is gone.”

“I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly.  I wish the whole ship’s company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,—­dance wildly into death and daylight.”

“We have nothing to do with death,” said Mr. Raleigh.  “Our foe is simply time.  You dance, then?”

“Oh, yes.  I dance well,—­like those white fluttering butterflies,—­as if I were au gre du vent.”  “That would not be dancing well.”

“It would not be dancing well to be at the will of the wind, but it is perfection to appear so.”

“The dance needs the expression of the dancer’s will.  It is breathing sculpture.  It is mimic life beyond all other arts.”

“Then well I love to dance.  And I do dance well.  Wait,—­you shall see.”

He detained her.

“Be still, little maid!” he said, and again drew her beside him, though she still continued standing.

At this moment the captain approached.

“What cheer?” asked Mr. Raleigh.

“No cheer,” he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his palm.  “The planks forward are already hot to the hand.  I tremble at every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all.”

“You have made the Sandy Hook light?”

“Yes; too late to run her ashore.”

“You cannot try that at the Highlands?”

“Certain death.”

“The wind scarcely”——­

“Veered a point I am carrying all sail.  But if this tooth of fire gnaws below, you will soon see the masts go by the board.  And then we are lost, indeed!”

“Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the pilots.”

“I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of fearlessness before him,” replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; and turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm countenance.

Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it continued.  He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek.  She sat down, leaning her head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze.  He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless.